Vain Fortune Part 15

'My dear Emily, it is quite impossible: do let me get on with my work!'

Emily's face instantly changed expression; she turned to leave the room, and Hubert had to go after her and beg her to forgive him--he really had not meant to be rude to her.

'You don't care to talk to me. I am not clever enough for you.'

Then pity took him, and he made amends by suggesting they should go for a walk in the park, and she often succeeded in leading him even to dry, uninteresting neighbours. But the burden grew heavier, and soon he could endure no longer the evenings of devotion to her in the drawing-room, where the presence of Mrs. Bentley seemed to fill her with incipient rebellion.

One evening after dinner, as he was about to escape up-stairs, Emily took his arm, pleading that he should play at least one game of backgammon with her. He played three; and then, thinking he had done enough, he took up a novel and began to read. Emily was bitterly offended. She sat in a corner, a picture of deep misery; and whenever he spoke to Mrs. Bentley, he thought she would burst into tears. It was exasperating to be the perpetual victim of such folly; and, pressed by the desire to talk to Mrs. Bentley about the book he was reading, he suggested that she should come with him to the meet. The Harriers met for the first time that season at not five miles from Ashwood. Mrs. Bentley pleaded an engagement. She had promised to go over to tea at the rectory.

'Oh, we shall be back in plenty of time; I'll leave you at the rectory on our way home.'

'Thank you, Mr. Price; but I do not think I can go.'

'And why, may I ask?'

'Well, perhaps Emily would like to go.'

'Emily has a cold, and it would be folly of her to venture a long drive on a cold morning.'

'My cold is quite well.'

'You were complaining before dinner how bad it was.'

'If you don't want to take me, say so.' Tears were now streaming down her cheeks.

'My dear Emily, I am only too pleased to have you with me; I was only thinking of your cold.'

'My cold is quite gone,' she said, with brightening face; and next morning she came down with her waterproof on her arm, and she had on a new cloth dress which she had just received from London. Hubert recognised in each article of attire a sign that she was determined to carry her point. It seemed cruel to tell her to take her things off, and he glanced at Mrs.

Bentley and wondered if she were offended.

'I hope the drive won't tire you; you know the meet is at least five miles from here.'

Emily did not answer. She looked charming with her great boa tied about her throat, and sprang into the dog-cart all lightness and joy.

'I hope you are well wrapped up about the knees,' said Mrs. Bentley.

'Oh yes, thank you; Hubert is looking after me.'

Mrs. Bentley's calm, statuesque face, whereon no trace of envy appeared, caught Hubert's attention as he gathered up the reins, and he thought how her altruism contrasted with the pa.s.sionate egotism of the young girl.

'I hope Julia was not disappointed. I know she wanted to come; but----'

'But what?'

'Well, no one likes Julia more than I do, and I don't want to say anything against her; but, having lived so long with her, I see her faults better than you can. She is horribly selfis.h.!.+ It never occurs to her to think of me.'

Hubert did not answer, and Emily looked at him inquiringly. At last she said, 'I suppose you don't think so?'

'Well, Emily, since you ask me, I must say that I think she took it very good-humouredly. You said you were ill, and it was all arranged that I should drive her to the meet; then you suddenly interposed, and said you wanted to go; and the moment you mentioned your desire to go, she gave way without a word. I really don't know what more you want.'

'You don't know Julia. You cannot read her face. She never forgets anything, and is storing it up, and will pay me out for it sooner or later.'

'My dear Emily, how can you say such things? I never heard---- She is always ready to sacrifice herself for you.'

'You think so. She has a knack of pretending to be more unselfish than another; but she is in reality intensely selfish.'

'All I can say is that it does not strike me so. I never saw any one give way more good-humouredly than she did to-day.'

'I don't think that that is so wonderful, after all. She is only a paid companion; and I do not see why she should go driving about the country with you, and I be left at home.'

Hubert was somewhat shocked. The conversation paused.

'She gets on very well with men,' Emily said at last, breaking an irritating silence somewhat suddenly. 'They say she is very good-looking.

Don't you think so?'

'Oh yes, she is certainly a pretty woman--or, I should say, a good-looking woman. She is too tall to be what one generally understands as a pretty woman.'

'Do you like tall women?'

At that moment the hunt appeared in the field at the bottom of the hill. A grey horse had just got rid of his rider, and after galloping round and round, his head in the air, stopped and began to graze. The others jumped the hedge, and the greater part of the field got over the brook in capital style. Emily and Hubert watched them with delighted eyes, for the sight was indeed picturesque this fine autumn day. Even their horse p.r.i.c.ked up his ears and began neighing, and Hubert had to hold him tight in hand, lest he should break away while they were enjoying the spectacle. At that moment a poor little animal, with fear-haunted eyes, and in all the agony of fatigue, appeared above the crest of the hill, and immediately after came the straining hounds, one within a dozen yards of the poor little beast, now running in a circle, uttering the most plaintive and pitiful cries.

'Oh, they are not going to kill it!' cried Emily. 'Oh, save it, save it, Hubert!' She hid her face in her hands. 'Did it escape? is it killed?' she said, looking round. 'Oh, it is too cruel!' The huntsman was calling to the hounds, holding something above them, and at every moment horses' heads appeared over the brow of the hill.

There was more hunting; and when the October night began to gather, and the lurid sunset flared up in the west, Hubert got out another wrap, and placed it about Emily's shoulders. But although the chill night had drawn them close together in the dog-cart, they were as widely separated as if oceans were between them. So far as lay in his power he had hidden the annoyance that the intrusion of her society had occasioned him; and, to deceive her, very little concealment was necessary. So long as she saw him she seemed to live in a dream, unconscious of every other thought.

They rolled through a gradual effacement of things, seeing the lights of the farmhouses in the long plain start into existence, and then remain fixed, like gold beetles pinned on a blue curtain. The chill evening drew her to him, till they seemed one; and full of the intimate happiness of the senses which comes of a long day spent in the open air, she chattered of indifferent things. He thought how pleasant the drive would be were he with Mrs. Bentley--or, for the matter of that, with any one with whom he could talk about the novel that had interested him. They rolled along the smooth wide road, watching the streak of light growing narrower in a veil of light grey cloud drawn athwart the sky. Overpowered by her love, the girl hardly noticed his silence; and when they pa.s.sed through the night of an overhanging wood her flesh thrilled, and a little faintness came over her; for the leaves that brushed her face had seemed like a kiss from her lover.

XV

One afternoon, about the end of September, Hubert came down from his study about tea-time, and announced that he had written the last scene of his last act. Emily was alone in the drawing-room.

'Oh, how glad I am! Then it is done at last. Why not write at once and engage the theatre? When shall we go to London?'

'Well, I don't mean that the play could be put into rehearsal to-morrow. It still requires a good deal of overhauling. Besides, even if it were completely finished, I should not care to produce it at once. I should like to lay it aside for a couple of months, and see how it read then.'

'What a lot of trouble you do take! Does every one who writes plays take so much trouble?'

'No, I'm afraid they do not, nor is it necessary they should. Their plays are merely incidents strung together more or less loosely; whereas my play is the development of a temperament, of temperamental characteristics which cannot be altered, having been inherited through centuries; it must therefore pursue its course to a fatal conclusion. In Shakespeare---- But no, no! these things have no interest for you. You shall have the nicest dress that money can buy; and if the play succeeds----'

The girl raised her pathetic eyes. In truth, she cared not at all what he talked to her about; she was occupied with her own thoughts of him, and just to sit in the room with him, and to look at him occasionally, was sufficient. But for once his words had pained her. It was because she could not understand that he did not care to talk to her. Why did she not understand? It was hard for a little girl like her to understand such things as he spoke about; but she would understand; and then her thoughts pa.s.sed into words, and she said--

'I understand quite as well as Julia. She, knows the names of more books than I, and she is very clever at pretending that she knows more than she does.'

At that moment Mrs. Bentley entered. She saw that Emily was enjoying her talk with her cousin, and tried to withdraw. But Hubert told her that he had written the last act; she pretended to be looking for a book, and then for some work which she said had dropped out of her basket.